Burnley FCIn 1960 Burnley FC won the English championship as the representative of one of the smallest towns ever to produce a national champion, with about 80,000 inhabitants at the time. The story is typical of the club, which succeeded not through money but through ideas, scouting and its own homegrown players. The club was founded on 18 May 1882 when the local rugby club Burnley Rovers switched codes to football. It has played at Turf Moor since 1883, having used the Calder Vale ground before that. In 1888 it became a founder member of the Football League. The club's colours are claret and blue, and its nickname is The Clarets.
The first league title came in 1920–21. Burnley won the league five points ahead of Manchester City, and during the season set a then English record of 30 league matches without defeat. Earlier, in 1913–14, the club had won the FA Cup. Those two triumphs made up its first great era, one that cannot be compared with the power of bigger centres but which firmly placed Burnley in the history of English football.
The second golden age came in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1955 the chairman was Bob Lord, a butcher and local businessman, and in 1954 Alan Brown had become manager. Burnley were among the first clubs in the country to build a purpose-built training ground, at Gawthorpe, and were renowned for their youth policy and a scouting network that supplied many talented players. In 1958 a former player, Harry Potts, became manager, and the spine of the team was captain Jimmy Adamson and playmaker Jimmy McIlroy, a Northern Irishman who turned down offers from bigger clubs to stay at Burnley. Potts often used the then unfashionable 4–4–2 formation.
The reward was the 1959–60 title, sealed on the last day with a 2–1 win away at Manchester City. The club also won the Charity Shield, and the following season it made its debut in the European Cup. In the first round it beat France's Stade de Reims, twice a finalist in the competition, 2–0 in the first match, with McIlroy scoring the opening goal. In the quarter-final Burnley beat Hamburger SV 3–1 at Turf Moor but went out in the return in Hamburg, tired by a heavy schedule: it played five matches in 14 days while in the semi-finals of both the league cup and the FA Cup. In 1962 the team reached the FA Cup final, losing to Tottenham Hotspur, and Adamson was named Footballer of the Year by the English football writers.
The abolition of the maximum wage in 1961 meant that clubs from small towns such as Burnley could no longer compete financially with bigger centres. McIlroy's departure to Stoke City in 1963 and Adamson's retirement in 1964 weakened the team, though in 1962–63 and 1965–66 Burnley finished third in the league and played in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1966–67.
Later decades brought ups and downs, including spells in the lower divisions. In the 21st century Burnley have been promoted to the Premier League several times, and in 2017–18 the club finished seventh and returned to European competition after 51 years, drawing 1–1 in the first match against Aberdeen and then winning after extra time at home. Today's Turf Moor, modernised and holding more than 22,000 spectators, remains one of the oldest grounds in English football. The tradition of The Clarets is thus built on loyalty to local identity and the ability to compete with clubs of far greater potential.